Thanks for the Tools of the Trade

Fanny Cradock encourages us to 'take time off from cooking' with the arrival of Part 24 of the Cookery Programme. She's not suggesting we just sit back, kick off our carpet slippers, pour a glass of sherry, watch some TV and order in some take-away you understand, it's time to grab our clipboards and do a stock-take in the kitchen. How do our tools of the trade match up to Fanny's high standards?

Fanny recognises that we won't all have the array of implements that she has in her dream kitchen, but we need things to aspire to naturally. Fanny says she is 90% certain that all her readers started to cook with the most basic of items, as she herself did, including a jam jar for a rolling pin. she doesn't know but I used an empty lemonade bottle, glass of course, for many years. Although Fanny displays page after page of equipment, she knows she can only show a fraction of those that are used by professionals, a grouping to which she includes herself. Otherwise Part 24 would be an extended 20 part catalogue she tells us. Diane lends a hand by showing how to make her own felt roll for her butchery knives, keeping them safe from temptation harm. Wouldn't want any nasty 'accidents' in Fanny's kitchen.

Fanny discusses all kinds of 'gear' - casseroles, stockpots, rings, tins and assorted home baking equipment, jelly moulds, icing equipment and lastly, not as expected, salad bowls. Her own wooden bowl came courtesy of some Australian friends and a 300 year old tree, how does yours measure up? Fanny is well aware that most readers will have come from families who have to make-do in culinary terms through lack of funds. Fanny is keen to make readers aware that both her and Johnnie came from backgrounds of great privilege and had exceptionally spoilt childhoods as a result.

However, in an attempt to connect with the readers, Fanny states that mercifully for both their characters they lost it all and hit rock bottom. It was this devastating loss and brush with poverty that spurned Fanny and Johnnie to success you see. When she began to earn money, without any training whatsoever, except in how to be a debutant, Fanny had her trustee jam jar for a rolling pin, frying pans without handles which other people had thrown away, tea towels made from cotton garments too shabby to wear and a junk shop piece of marble for her pastry work.

She got by though, and hopes that even the poorest of readers will be inspired to do the same, by scrimping, saving and working hard, like she and Johnnie have done, to have such a gorgeous kitchen. Fanny leaves us with a thank-you, as she spends another happy hour looking at all her things she is reminded that if it wasn't for her readers she would have none of it. So, in many ways she believes it really is OUR kitchen too, as we have enabled it. So, no need to buy all the things at all, just pop round and share in Fanny's super-ness. I'm sure she wouldn't mind. Now, back to the cooking, Fanny has more earning to do!

It's A Mystery, to meat

Fanny Cradock starts Part 22 with some wise words which form a classic French riddling ruling - 'Les chefs sont faits, les rôtisseurs sont nés' - but sadly her motto is lost on me. She's chatting about roasting meat you see, and while cooks may be made and roasters born, for this vegetarian apprentice, Fanny's techniques and tips for butchery and brawn are just unsuited, irrelevant and incompatible.

Fanny tries her best to get me to appreciate the well-hung. Her advice is 'You cannot expect a prime roast from really fresh meat.' The problem seems to be that if it is under-hung, and Fanny gives no advice as to what that might be, then it needs to be cooked slowly. Add to the puzzle that it should be carved 'properly' too. Beef thinly, lamb or mutton in thick 'collops', pork half way between thick and thin, not quite covered by the phrase 'medium thick.' A quandary for me. Fanny's grandmother described paper-thin slices of pork in the same way as she described thin slices of plum cake - that they 'taste of the knife'. I am so glad I need not pay much attention to this meaty part, nothing makes any sense already!

Fanny turns her considerable hands to boning. She has several skills to show, and does so in an array of jarring pic-strips. She transforms a saddle of lamb (whatever that is) into a 'winged victory' with a very sharp knife. She bones and stuffs the enigma that is a leg of lamb, wearing what appears to be pyjamas, which is presumably crucial. Does one do it early early in the morning, or just before bed? Fanny sees pointless (to me) boning as essentially a 'job of excavation' that requires no skill. Except the skill she is demonstrating. The confusion continues with a mind boggling selection of grabbing, scraping, paring, rolling and slipping. I'm stumped.

Meat sometimes needs to be boiled, sometimes grilled. The dilemma strikes me as avoiding cooking all the goodness out of it and ending up with bits of army boot soles, so Fanny advises being gentle and tender. As ever. Except with bacon, which needs to be grilled until it resembles the ridges of the Loch Ness Monsters back. Fanny also tries her hand at Tournedos, which aren't twisting cyclones as I suspected but instead involves covering a piece of meat, breast of game, poultry and very occasionally fish with a thin slice of raw unsalted pork fat. Fanny calls it barding. The conundrum continues.

Oven roasting looks as if it is all about disguising unsightly things with teasing trimmings of puff pastry or spreading crusty domes of breadcrumbs on top of the hunks of flesh. It's no good for me. Reading between the lines, the show of grilling and roasting has the appearance of merely being an array of outfits and accessories - Fanny poses in a different ensemble for each pic-strip. This meat game is a complete enigma to me. I'm clearly not a born roaster so I'll continue to hang out with the well hung and considerably less confusing veggies instead.